INTERVIEW DDH builds trust in dental care with AI

DDH founder and CEO Her Soo-bok speaks to The Korea Times at his clinic in Seoul, Monday. Courtesy of DDH

By Lee Yeon-woo

• Published Jul 29, 2026 12:00 PM KST

Company aims to become global dental AI front-runner

Few patients readily accept being told they have four cavities, need a root canal and must have a tooth extracted. Their first response is often skepticism: Can I trust the dentist’s judgment? Is all that treatment really necessary?

DDH, a Korean dental artificial intelligence (AI) startup, believes technology can help bridge that trust gap — a challenge the company says extends well beyond Korea.

"The industry's biggest pain point, both in Korea and abroad, is patients' distrust of dentists," DDH founder and CEO Her Soo-bok told The Korea Times in an interview, Monday.

DDH's solution, called Pano, is designed to make dental diagnoses easier for patients to understand.

The process begins with a panoramic X-ray. The company's AI model analyzes the image and uses different colors to highlight areas that may show signs of cavities, gum disease or other conditions. A dentist then reviews the findings and determines whether treatment is necessary.

"Such records help build patient trust and prevent potential legal disputes," Her said.

He said dentistry accounts for the largest share of household medical spending in Korea, with patients paying about 8.3 trillion won ($5.6 billion) out of pocket in 2023. Globally, the market is estimated to be worth 645 trillion won and is expected to continue growing, driven largely by treatments that are not covered by insurance.

Despite the scale, the dental AI industry remains relatively young.

"It is still an emerging global market with no clear dominant player," Her said.

U.S.-based Overjet, which offers similar services, has been valued at more than 1 trillion won. Her believes DDH has room to compete, particularly because of the proprietary dataset it has built over several years.

DDH began building its dataset in 2019 and secured regulatory approval in Korea in 2024, navigating a regulatory landscape in which few established standards were available.

Through a government-backed data initiative, the company obtained panoramic dental X-rays from 11 university hospitals with each institution granting approval through its institutional review board. Her said recreating a dataset of that scale in Korea would now be extremely difficult, giving DDH an advantage that newer companies could not easily overcome through capital alone.

Winning over dentists, however, was another challenge.

"When I first introduced the technology to dentists of my generation, nearly all of them asked why they needed AI when they could read the images themselves," Her recalled.

Attitudes began to shift as more dentists adopted the platform and shared their experiences at industry seminars. Acceptance has grown particularly quickly among younger practitioners, who increasingly see digital transformation as a necessity rather than a choice.

"New clinics are already expected to invest in digital X-ray systems, intraoral scanners and CT equipment," Her said. "As patients also come to expect digital diagnostic tools, resistance to dental AI has steadily diminished."

The pace of adoption has accelerated accordingly. DDH took more than 10 months to secure its first 100 users. It added more than 300 over the following 10 months, bringing the total to about 400. The company now aims to expand its user base to 1,000 dental clinics in Korea by early next year.

Its next phase of growth will focus increasingly on overseas markets. Her said the technology can be adapted relatively easily across countries because dental anatomy varies far less among populations than genetic diseases do.

The company is using Shandong Province as a potential springboard into China. With support from the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency, DDH was introduced to a major health care cluster in Jinan, where it has been pursuing regulatory approval, local testing and distribution partnerships. The company expects to receive regulatory approval by the end of the year and begin full-scale commercial operations in 2027, Her said.

DDH also plans to seek approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with the goal of entering the U.S. market in 2028. Under a Korean government-backed program, the company is set to receive 3 billion won over three years to conduct international multicenter clinical trials and build a commercialization platform with the Memphis Veterans Affairs medical system.

DDH is also aiming for a Kosdaq listing in 2028 through a special listing track for technology companies. Her said the listing could help strengthen DDH's credibility with partnerships with established health care institutions and companies.

Korea's dental industry is already highly competitive, Her said. Eight of the country's top 20 medical device exporters are dental companies, accounting for roughly 35 percent of their combined sales.

However, he sees software as an increasingly important source of competitiveness.

European and Korean dental products remain widely preferred, Her said, but Chinese manufacturers are rapidly catching up. Korean companies may therefore find it increasingly difficult to compete in China in areas such as materials, components and equipment.

"Korea's next competitive edge will have to come from software and integrated solutions," he said.

For Her, the broader shift is already underway.

"The age of AI-powered digital health care has already begun, and the market is growing rapidly," he said. "Korea has a first mover in Asia in this field. With the right support, it could become a global market leader within three years."